Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #331: EU

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — European countries acted quickly Monday to shore up troubled banks by promising billions of euros in loan guarantees and capital investment.

The announcements – from France, Germany, Spain and Britain – followed an emergency meeting in Paris Sunday by the leaders of 15 European nations.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy, who also currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, pledged to pour $480 billion (360 billion euros) into the French banking system.

“The taxpayer will be the winner,” he told the French people in a nationally televised address Monday.

The story was similar in Berlin, where Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged $653 billion (480 billion euros) to support the German banking system and the British government separately said it would pour $63 billion (37 billion pounds) into three major banks. In Spain, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the government would set aside $134 billion (100 billion euros) to guarantee inter-bank loans.

The 15-nation group had said on Sunday that they would protect individual depositors’ accounts and move to ease accounting regulations that determine how assets are valued, removing a requirement that they be based on market prices – so-called “mark-to-market” accounting.